Left: Detail from Rubens, 'Laocoön and his Sons', about 1601-2.
© Rheinisches Bildarchiv, Cologne.
Right: Detail from Rubens, 'Study of the Farnese Hercules', about 1602.
© Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, London
Detail from Rubens, 'Samson and Delilah', about 1610.
© The National Gallery, London
Fortunately for Rubens, the Duke of Mantua was a busy man, and allowed Rubens to travel and study in other cities.
He is known to have visited Florence and Genoa and probably went to Padua, Verona, Treviso, Parma, Bologna and Milan.
The most important destination, however, was Rome.
The Duke had arranged for his young artist to live under the protection of friends while in Rome, and Rubens found himself staying at the Villa Medici, which was a palace of artworks and antiquities.
He also visited the Vatican and other collections in order to draw the most famous classical sculptures.
The immense, muscular bodies of these meticulously studied sculptures quickly began to reappear in Rubens's paintings - look at the bulk of the sleeping Samson in 'Samson and Delilah'.
